I hardly know where to begin this post. This last episode, “Sine Qua Non,” was Donald-Trump rich in developments and revelations, as was the teaser trailer. Frankly, I was blown away with a lot of what happened but I’ve tried to break things down to the highlights and offer my meager insights into what they mean or might mean down the road.

Of Cylons and Men … Women … and Cylons

The sneak peek for next week’s episode hints that we may be very close to learning who the final Cylon is, possibly as early as next week.

The quick-fire clips leave us with the impression that President Laura Roslin may indeed be the final Cylon, but I’m hesitant to completely buy that considering what a little clever editing can insinuate to throw us off. I wish I could even buy with certainty that the list of “suspects” has been significantly narrowed, but I prefer to take the let’s-wait-and-see approach since the show has been notoriously unpredictable — who would have foreseen the irascible Col. Saul Tigh as a Cylon before he was revealed?

That said, I will postulate as to who is on that narrowed list, if the teaser is to be taken at face value and go only on what we know to date.

So what does the sneak peek reveal and what do we know to date? Well, for one, we can see that the newly resurrected D’Anna was shown in the clip aboard a Cylon vessel as she addresses one of the Final Five, possibly the Fifth. And we know from “Guess What’s Coming To Dinner?” that persons of note aboard any Cylon vessel include: Roslin, Karl “Helo” Agethon, and Gaius Baltar, along with a number of Galatica’s crew, most of whom though appear to be background characters.

As I said before, the sneak peek is edited to insinuate that Roslin is that Cylon, but I am not so sure, especially in light of the “Last Supper” photo and Ron Moore’s cagey response that suggested that the final Cylon wasn’t amongst those pictured. Now, that makes it really interesting because Roslin, Helo and Baltar are all in the “Last Supper” picture, and the other likely candidates are nowhere near a Cylon vessel at the end of last week’s episode. That means that we were either tossed a HUGE red herring, or there must be someone else of note that we don’t know about amongst the human contingent on the Cylon baseship, or something is going to happen to bring other likely suspects or one of the revealed Four into contact with D’Anna.

It is important to note, however, that even though the finger appears to be pointed at Roslin, Helo is also a viable candidate. Why do I say that? Consider that Tigh has apparently impregnated the Galactica’s Cylon prisoner Caprica Six. Yes, folks, two Cylons have apparently procreated, something previously thought impossible. Things are really getting interesting on that front and it opens up a lot of previously believed established things to question. Is Hera also the first progeny of two Cylons or is she still a hybrid? And what of Chief Tyrol’s son?

I think it’s pretty well established at this point that the Final Five are very different from the known models. They are subject to human illnesses and weaknesses and apparently are able to procreate. I, for one, am eager to find out how all this plays out, and a part of me loves that the writers are keeping us guessing.

ADDENDUM:
A friend of mine just pointed out that another likely possibility for whom D’Anna addresses in the clip. It could be Sam Anders, hubby of Starbuck, since his whereabouts are unaccounted for at this point. He may be aboard Galactica and we just haven’t seen him, or he could have been among the contingent of pilots sent to the wounded Cylon baseship. That would get them out of revealing the last Cylon so soon in this season and explain D’Anna’s recognition of one of the Final Five in that scene. And it would dodge the “Last Supper” picture issue.

Apollo in Chief?

Frankly, I don’t know how I feel about Lee Adama’s ascendance to the presidency. While I don’t think Lee is a bad guy, I seriously wonder if he planned this rise to power. There’s just something in how that all played out that leaves me with questions about his motives, which is something I’ve never really had before. Lee has always been a stand-up guy. Naive, gullible, and blindly idealistic, yes, but never really a man with ulterior motives. I’m not saying he’s developed them now — though he has gone into politics which is reason enough to wonder on its own — but I have a sneaking suspicion that there’s more to his quest to appoint an interim president than meets the eye.

I also worry greatly about his trust in Tom Zarek. Once again, Zarek’s spilling bile and Lee’s just lapping it up — I know that’s a gross description but I feel it’s an accurate one. Is Zarek wholly bad? No, I don’t think so, but I sure don’t trust him. And then there’s Romo Lampkin. Both he and Zarek have Lee’s number and they dial it at every opportunity that presents itself and Lee remains none the wiser, which is just plain dumbfounding at this point.

Of course, if Lee’s ambition was never to take Roslin’s place, then Lampkin’s little “I’m-gonna-shoot-you” scene is suspect. I wonder if it was a ploy to manipulate Lee into stepping up and taking it, which would be truer to Lee’s nature as someone who goes only where he’s directed or offered, something Lampkin himself pointed out. Of course, the shades-sporting attorney also had some rather unkind comments about Roslin, too. And while I think he is probably accurate in some ways, in terms of Roslin being ambitious, I think his perspective is skewed by cynicism or adopted mainly to goad Lee the direction he wanted him to go.

One thing I am fairly certain of is that there is much more afoot on that front than I think can be seen on the surface, or even be predicted. Zarek and Romo are likely positioning Lee for something and I don’t like it, mainly because Lee probably won’t see it until it’s too late.

Stop The Hate

Frankly, I just don’t get where all the Roslin-hate comes from, other than perhaps they’re like a bunch of errant children who are unhappy that they can’t have their way. That and they’re mad at her because she really does know what’s best for them and they can’t stand that she’s right all the time.

As viewers, of course, we’ve had the ability to see all sides of Roslin — both the kind, charming, funny and delicate woman she is in private as well as the wise, dedicated, occasionally iron-fisted leader she must be — and I have seen nothing sinister in her motivations, personal or professional. And Zarek’s assertion that she and Adama are in some sort of alliance to rule by autocratic decree is just plain baseless. Yes, they are united. Yes, they advise and support each other in decisions, but they are not bound together in some unholy union bent on absolute power and domination.

Get real, Zarek! These two people would just as soon everyone leave them alone so they could live their lives in peace. And personally I think a large part of Roslin would have been content to remain a school teacher on New Caprica, built that cabin by the lake and spent the rest of her days setting up house with a certain admiral. Considering that, it’s hard to understand why so many people see her as some mustache-twirling villain in women’s clothing with Adama as her black-booted muscle. It just doesn’t make sense.

Testy Old Guys

The showdown between Tigh and Adama … what can I say about that? Not a whole lot. It speaks for itself quite clearly — two long-time friends coming to blows over the women in each of their lives. I think we can all concede that Adama has the higher ground in that fight. Roslin is after all the president of the Colonies and he does love her, while Tigh has been getting it on with a “skin job” prisoner while envisioning his ex-wife. Of course, time will tell if Adama has been pretty much doing the same with Roslin, at least on the first count, albeit unknowingly.

The best part of the whole scene is that they’re back to being buddies after getting it out of their systems. They are the epitome of male friendship.

Hopefully Devoted

I have been writing about this for some time now and now we’ve been given “official” confirmation of how our dear Admiral Adama feels about Madam President Roslin.

The man loves her, really loves her, so much so that he’s relinquished his command to drift in space alone in a raptor hoping that she is still alive and will return to the fleet’s last known position. It’s a gamble of the heart because evidence strongly suggests that she and the contingent of his crew aboard the Cylon baseship that jumped away are dead. Still, Adama refuses to give up hope that he’ll find her. Why? He tells his son succinctly, “I can’t live without her.”

All I can say to that is WOW!

Just as Mary McDonnell owned “Guess What’s Coming To Dinner?,” Edward James Olmos owns “Sine Qua Non.” Adama’s worry, fear and rage fuel this episode from start to finish. He is positively ferocious in the scene where he and Tigh come to fisticuffs and while dressing-down Athena. And I loved that little half-smile he gave Lee when he admitted he couldn’t live without Roslin, as if he were glad and relieved to finally be able to say it aloud, to admit it to himself even and embrace it. There was a joy in that surrender for Adama, I think, and it’s what gives him hope that she’s still out there and coming back.

The Adama-Roslin relationship is one of those onscreen pairings that writers/creators of shows tend to avoid like the plague. Believe me, I know. I’ve suffered through years of angst with many TV series in my time, particularly Star Trek: The Next Generation, which took the most adult relationship on the series and made it look more like a prepubescent crush. Don’t even get me started on that. But I’ll take the subtle courtship and gradual deepening of Roslin and Adama’s relationship as payback for all those years of teeth gnashing.

Thank you, writers, for not being afraid to show us two grown-ups falling in love and standing by each other through the best and worst of times. Finally a complex relationship based on more than what goes on between the sheets! It’s a nice change from all the wild and lusty behavior of the younger set that usually gets the most attention.

Other Things of Note

• Tigh is now in command of the Fleet — and we all remember what happened last time, right? That said, I actually think that Tigh is going to do all right, despite being a Cylon. I think he is so afraid to disappoint Adama, and of Adama’s reaction to what he is, that he’d sooner pry out his one good eye than to mess up now.
• Sharon “Athena” Agethon is back in the brig for shooting the Cylon rebel leader Natalie, but Adama had her child returned to her before he left the ship.
• Natalie died from the gunshot wounds and had a vision, or projection, of a forest before she passed on.
• We learned that Tom Zarek is the one who pulled strings to get Lee the Caprican delegate position.
• Roslin’s prognosis is not good in her battle against cancer the longer she stays away.
• The Quorum, as usual, descended into chaos without Roslin there to keep them in line. As a friend of mine noted, these people make our Congress look highly competent.

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I just finished watching tonight’s episode (“Sine Qua Non”) of Battlestar Galatica and I am so wound up I can barely write this post. Between what happened in the episode and the sneak peeks of next week’s episode, I am positively in a state of … frak, I don’t even know what word would describe my mental/emotional state at the moment. I want to write more, but right now, I think I need some time to digest it all.

Despite all the spaceships, at its heart, Battlestar Galactica is a human drama of remarkable depth and complexity of story and particularly character. Each episode seems to run the gamut of emotions. It’s almost torturous, but in a way that is utterly divine, and it never rings false, a rarity in television. No, with BSG we get honesty about the human condition, both the beautiful and the ugly and all that lies in between. Television doesn’t get much better than this, and for me, I’m not sure if anything will ever top what they’ve done with this show. I pray the BSG writers will stay the course and deliver us a dazzling and appropriate ending for the series. The show needs it and deserves it and so do its fans. To do less would diminish such a stellar accomplishment for the medium.

I truly wish the network would reconsider the lengthy mid-season hiatus they have planned for the series. This show is absolutely must-watch right now and I think it would be a crying shame to lose the momentum. It’d be tantamount to hitting a speed bump at 100 miles per hour.

Please, Mr. Moore, Mr. Eick, and the BSG cast, go to bat for your fans. We love the show and want to watch it straight through to the end.

One week down and one week to go in the enforced Battlestar Galactica fast and I’m trying hard to make it. I couldn’t miss my Friday night Adama-and-the-gang fix, however. I re-watched the previous week’s FANTASTIC episode, “Guess What’s Coming To Dinner,” just to stave off the Adama cravings. So much for really fasting.

I just HAD to see the scene again where President Laura Roslin gives her chief aide, Tory Foster, the verbal bitch-slap of a lifetime with a single, disdain-oozing statement:

“I don’t care if you have to spend all night on your knees praying or just on your knees. I want a name.”

DAYUM! The president of the 12 colonies does not mince words and the look on Foster’s face when Roslin outs her is priceless (see it here). She really underestimated Roslin — why people still do this after everything that’s happened, I will never know — and it’s clear she never truly considered the price she’d pay for breaching Roslin’s trust, which is just plain stupid. What did Foster think Roslin was going to do when she found out Foster was doing the horizontal mambo with Baltar, Roslin’s nemesis? And seriously, did Foster think she was going to be able to keep it a secret? They’re aboard Galactica for frak’s sake, and the crew on that ship is loyal to Adama, who is clearly Roslin’s confidante and vice-versa. Geez. For a Cylon, Tory’s a moron.

Speaking of morons, it looks as if Captain Moron himself, er, I mean, the former Captain Apollo, appears to be shaping up … maybe. He started out so confrontational with Roslin early in the episode that I was afraid he was permanently securing his residence in Roslin’s metaphorical doghouse, but he seemed to exercise a bit more sense as the episode proceeded. I can’t believe he attempted to “school” her on the importance of the “welfare of the fleet” … self-righteous jerk. I loved her rejoinder, however:

“Excuse me. As long as I am in this office, the welfare of this fleet is not something you need to worry about.”

That’s not a statement made from bluster or pride, it’s a fact, which can be backed up by simply looking at the history of her tenure in power. From the beginning, she has put the welfare of the fleet first. It is her primary goal and so important to her that she actually attempted to steal the results of a democratic election because she knew it was in the fleet’s best interest. It wasn’t pride or a power play, but a sincere desire to do what was best for the remainder of humanity and to save the people from the consequences of their misguided electoral choice. And she was right, even though what she wanted to do was wrong legally and morally. There’s the double-edge sword of philosophy again.

What gets me is that Lee Adama seems to have forgotten who Roslin is, which is odd considering he was the first person in the military she bonded with and how much he sided with her early on, even over his father. They really went through a lot together but ever since he tossed her to the wolves during Gaius Baltar’s trial and found himself on the outside of the inner circle of power — which is Roslin, Admiral Adama and his top officers — it’s like he’s forgotten everything he knows about her, not to mention his father.

Under the influence of Romo Lampkin, Baltar’s attorney, Lee was bad enough, but it became much worse when Vice President Tom Zarek, a man who always has an agenda, began wheedling him. Since then, Lee’s been only too happy to believe the worst of her. And why? Because Zarek insinuates there’s something nefarious going on in her decisions and actions? Because Zarek suggests that Adama and Roslin are up to no good because they don’t share what goes into making every decision with a bunch of whining ingrates who thought self-serving Baltar was a better choice to lead them? Have I missed something? When did Zarek, a former terrorist, become Mr. Credibility? For frak’s sake, he plotted to kill Lee and his father both on Kobol!

The real clincher is, that Roslin is the same person she’s been all along. Yes, she’s grown more confident in wielding the power of her position. Yes, circumstances and experience have taught her to make difficult decisions quicker and have honed her ability to be ruthless, when necessary, to a sharp edge. But she, as a person, has not changed fundamentally. She is still Laura Roslin, a former school teacher savvy about politics who came to presidential power during the most trying of times as a result of what she herself has called a “mathematical absurdity.”

Roslin, despite all that she’s been through, remains a thoughtful, reasonable and compassionate woman who is an uncannily accurate judge of character. She has a generous spirit and a will of iron, and possesses a singular focus and desire to do what’s best for the people under her care. And she’s doing them all a great service, whether they know it or not and in spite of their perpetual bitching and moaning. She is ready, prophesied even, to die in her service to them, something that I think no one save herself and Bill Adama has truly considered, and still she does not flinch from the responsibility or burdens of her position. She stands resolute, accepting of what the scriptures have decreed as her fate, fighting the terminal breast cancer ravaging her body only so that she can do what must be done. Why Lee Adama can’t see this is beyond me.

At the very least though, for now, Lee seems to have thankfully ceased being so adversarial with her. The scene where he visits her in Galactica’s sickbay and urges her to talk to the Quorum about her decision to form an alliance with a faction of Cylon rebels is telling. I think, for the first time, he realized the burden she bears, that her job is not solely about wielding power and making decisions, but standing as a beacon of hope for a people who have none without her and fastidiously keeping them united even as their petty concerns and posturing threaten to tear them apart. As much as they might chafe at times from the way she does things, much as children chafe from a mother’s strictures, they know deep down, whether they are aware of it and will admit or not, that she is their strength and without her they are little more than lost, directionless sheep in a wilderness of wolves. And I’m not just talking about the Cylons.

And that’s what makes the ending of “Guess What’s Coming To Dinner?” so fantastically terrifying. Roslin has been whisked away aboard the damaged Cylon baseship, leaving the fleet without it’s shepherd … and it appears that Adama is going to follow with the Galactica. Motherless and fatherless, it will be interesting to see how the fleet responds, particularly Tom Zarek, Lee Adama and the remainder of the quorum. Will they rise to the occasion and be the leaders they’re supposed to be? Or will infighting be the order of the day? Will they finally realize how much their survival to date has been rooted in the unified strength and choices of Roslin and Adama, the two people they perpetually try to tear down? I wouldn’t count on it — human nature is such a bitch — but one can always hope.

It’s going to be an interesting episode this coming Friday. I am ready for it. More than ready, actually. I want to know what’s going to happen between Tigh and Adama. I want to know what the fallout is from Sharon Valerie gunning down the Cylon rebel leader Natalie. I want to know what happens with Roslin and the contingent of Galactica’s crew that is aboard the baseship. I am dying to know what the hybrid will tell Roslin. I want to know who/what Starbuck is/has become and what she will do next. I want to know what’s with Hera’s fascination with the Sixes, most notably Caprica Six — that “bye-bye” scene was creepy beyond words. And, what is the significance of Roslin taking Adama’s copy of Searider Falcon with her?

There are so many things left still to play out in Battlestar Galactica, and I wait with bated breath and a not so small amount of frustration until the next airing. So bring it on, Ron Moore and the writing gang. Let’s get the show on the road and the Galactica’s guns warmed up. I’m ready and, I think it’s safe to say, so are the rest of the show’s fans.

So say we all.

Oh, and just in case you didn’t know…

A word of warning to my fellow BSG fans, brace yourselves for a long mid-season hiatus of the show. Apparently we’re only going to see three more episodes before they take a break and resume airing sometime late this year or in early 2009.

Personally, I HATE this and I seriously question the wisdom of it, considering the momentum of the story and the fact this is the final season — and let’s not forget what that has done to ratings in the past for BSG, as well as the serialized drama LOST. I would much rather watch the final season through and not wait for another five months or more to see the end. It’s going to be agonizing, and wholly unnecessary to boot.

I honestly wait for the day that networks quit making decisions that serve only to frustrate faithful fans. They have an utterly captivated audience right now and they’re going to risk it for what? If it’s over advertising dollars, I’m going to laugh my considerable behind off.

It seems to me that…

a captivated audience watching a show on a thrill-packed roller coaster ride to the end = HUGE advertising revenue opportunities,

whereas…

making a captivated audience take a break from the ride and hope they come back to finish it later = a bigger gamble for potential advertisers,

… especially when you consider the attention span of the average TV viewer, even faithful ones, and the other, copious entertainment options vying for their loyalty.

Seriously, what if the amusement park had a roller coaster that went halfway through, stopped before the biggest thrills, made everyone get off the ride and told them to come back later? How many people do you think would come back to ride that coaster? Not many, I’ll bet.

Is the wait because it’s summer and the network thinks people are never going to be home? Geez, look at economy and the price of gas these days. Trust me, a lot of people will be staying home, more than probably ever before. Don’t you think they’d appreciate a GREAT television show to watch (or record – have people forgotten we can do that now?) on Friday nights? I know I would.

But instead, it looks like we’re in for a long, ridiculous wait to finish a journey that began four years ago, one that I’ve enjoyed immensely. Truly, this is the sci-fi show I’ve waited for all my life and I am woefully unhappy to have this final chapter unceremoniously split for reasons I can’t fathom. I doubt seriously I’m alone in this either. We need an Admiral Adama to rally the troops, aka us fans, and urge the powers that be to reconsider the break in airing. Two weeks is bad enough, but months … frak that.

***Promotional images used in this post are copyrighted works and used here for informational and entertainment purposes ONLY.***